1. Dan Jones.
Y fanw wedi ei chyfodi yn fyw: neu'r hen grefydd newydd. Traethawd yn dangos anghyfnewidioldeb teyrnas Dduw.
(The dead raised to life: or the old religion anew. Treatise showing the immutability of the kingdom of God.)
Wrexham: Printed by William Bayley, Estyn Street, 1845.
iv[5]-48 pp. 19 cm.
Printed wrappers--the front wrapper differs only slightly from the title page; it has just 4 lines of scriptural quotation, where the title page has 14 lines; also, it has an ornamental border, where the title page has none.
The preface to this, the first extant Welsh Mormon pamphlet, is dated 4 April 1845. Three months earlier, the author, Dan Jones, had begun his labors as a Mormon missionary in North Wales. In a letter dated 24 February 1845, Jones wrote to Wilford Woodruff, an apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: "Since Br. Stratton left I have prepared a work for the press, principally about the order of the Kingdom set up in the days of the Apostles, & illustrating the first principles, the immutability of the Gospel &c something similar to P. P. Pratts, on the Kingdom, in the voice of Warning, but Welsh of course" (Library-Archives, Historical Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; hereafter cited as LDS Church Archives).
The night before Joseph and Hyrum Smith were martyred, Dan Jones was with them in the jail at Carthage, Illinois. There he was the recipient of Joseph's last prophecy: "You will yet see Wales, and fulfill the mission appointed you before you die. " The call for Jones to return to his native land as a missionary had come on 11 May 1843, more than a year before the Carthage prophecy; but his departure had been delayed, possibly by involvements in connection with the Maid of Iowa, a small river steamer which Joseph Smith had purchased from Jones. That the money from the Maid of Iowa was intended to be used for publishing materials in Welsh is indicated by Joseph Smith's comment to Jones shortly before going to Carthage (Jones is quoting Joseph Smith): " 'I have a check in the house for $1200 as soon as I can get it cashed you shall have $1100 of it, and the start for Wales, not with your fingers in your mouth but prepared to buy a Press; and do business aright' " (Jones to T. Bullock, 20 January 1855, LDS Church Archives). According to Jones, however, payment was never made; and during his first mission to Wales he had to have his writings published on a borrowed press.
In his 24 February 1845 letter to Wilford Woodruff, Jones describes the intended publication and then laments the cost: "ÕTwil be in pamphlet form about two sheets, or 48 pages, of twelve fold, close type .... They wanted [pound sign]16 pr 1000. but tomorrow I have to go & see another Printer & will make a trade with him for a thousand copies for something less & get him to print them in two weeks." The printer who eventually did the work on this pamphlet was William Bayley of Wrexham in North Wales.
Jones uses more than two-thirds of the section "The Kingdom of God" from Apostle Parley P. Pratt's pamphlet Voice of Warning. At times he translates directly; at times he paraphrases; other times he rearranges the order. Nearly always he elaborates on Pratt's line of logic. Although at least three-fourths of Jones's pamphlet is not in Voice of Warning, generally this "nonborrowed" portion is an expansion of ideas which had been set forth by Parley P. Pratt. Some of the more significant enlarged areas are the necessity of baptism, the existence of spiritual gifts in modern times, and the reality of the death and resurrection of the Savior.
Curiously, not once in Y farw wedi ei chyfodi yn fyw does Jones mention the word Mormon or even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But the various ministers of other religions apparently knew perfectly well which faith Jones represented, and united in opposition. In a cooperative effort, the Baptists and the Independents of Merthyr Tydfil appointed one David Williams to refute Jones's pamphlet with one of their own: Twyll y Seintiau Diweddaf yn cael ei ddynoethi, mewn nodiadau byr ar draethawd a ysgrifenwyd yn ddiweddar gan Capt. D. Jones, dan yr enw, "Traethawd ar anghyfnewidioldeb teyrnas Dduw" (The fraud of the Latter Saints exposed in brief observations on the treatise which was written recently by Capt. D. Jones, by the name of "Treatise on the immutability of the kingdom of God"). This first Welsh anti-Mormon pamphlet was published in December 1845.
Extremely rare today, Y farw wedi ei chyfodi yn fyw had become a collector's item within five years of its publication. John Davis commented in the wrapper (p. iv) of the February 1850 Udgorn Seion: "Remember that the books of the Saints are the only things that go up in price the older they get. Just try buying the early volumes of the STAR for five pounds, or the Hen grefydd newydd [Old religion anew--a portion of the title of item 1] for a half a crown.
CSmH, UPB, USlC, WCS WN, VS
Flake no. 4469
